(the initial, spontaneous version)
From Mental Hives to Love Forever
Conversing on the Internet
for forty long and lonesome years
still we’ve never even met…
Eerie thought today, but then
tomorrow it will be the norm-
Spending time in mental hives
finally finding the true ‘within’
that in the end renders us crazy
because our hearts cannot feel
that part of us existing there…
Hearts are tactile things, so blind,
from the darkness desiring ‘touch’,
-they will have their way with us
or drive us mad and utterly insane…
We offer love, we get back sadness
in a message that there are no guarantees;
laughter, fashion, work, mere measures
of how much love we’d win forever…
Love forever… …no guarantees…
so back within the mental hive
where silence lives in simple beauty
where beauty silently withers away
on a new, and ancient, vine.
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(the reworked, edited, smoothed-out, thought-further-through contrived and less spontaneous version)
A New Electric Ancient Vine
Conversed we on the Internet
intertwined for forty years
yet we never even met-
eerie thought that is today
so long, and never even phoned;
tomorrow it will be the same…
We gather here in mental hives;
finally found a true ‘within’
a place our hearts can't understand
because they cannot truly reach
the part of us existing here…
for hearts are tactile things, you see-
through the darkness reaching out
yearning for a meaningful touch;
and if they do not have their way
bring sadness, insanity and pain…
We offer love, receive an echo
of messages writ with weightless tears
that show there are no guarantees
to love forever…
Love forever-
laughter, fashion, attraction, work-
all the same, all mere measures
of how much love we’d win forever…
love forever
no guarantees
so safe within this mental hive
as our hearts moan deep within
while silence lives in abstract beauty
yet beauty in such silence withers
on a new electric ancient vine.
A contest entry
- Spontaneous vs. Contrived Combust by ErrantHeart.
600 points, ended February 13, 2008, 11 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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I am torn as to which version I like best. I think each version has parts that I prefer over its counterpart. I do know I prefer the first verse in the spontaneous version over your first verse in the 'contrived' version. I don't care for "Converse we, on the internet" or the "intertwined", but it all boils down to judgment calls and personal tastes I guess.
I had such high expectations for this poem. It touches on feelings that I also have experienced and so I knew there would be expressed palpable depths of emotion, frustration... even desperation. But it left me feeling a bit flat. I know that hidden in this poem are some really powerful, impactful longings that I would love to see you explore more fully...draw the reader into. And yet, in a way, it's how it is isn't it? Words that lack in that they hold everything but hold nothing. Love that lacks in that it holds promise that belies itself. A powerful, powerful medium, the internet, where two hearts, two minds, can interconnect, communicate so fully and completely, desperately feel and want and need, yet no possibility, for whatever reasons, for consummation, for fruition. And yet, the feelings, the 'love forever' ideal is almost more strongly felt than perhaps it would be in the eye to eye the skin to skin connect. But how to know.
I want to feel the yearning that the time past must signify. I want to feel the ache, the depth, the hot breath of anticipation for a meeting so desired that your words expel their wretchedness. What I did feel, what came across, was dejected hopelessness that didn't really inspire me to much but a deflated sadness. While there are some beautiful lines...
"where silence lives its beauty
while beauty in the silence withers
on this new, and ancient, vine."
it all has left me tasting the dry reality and wishing for more fleshly delight. That sense of touch deprived.
and maybe
in that way your poem is effectual
and is meant to leave one feeling thus.
It is a mental hive, with sting and steady drone
of sensible bees scurrying, hurrying
needing
wanting
the sweetness of honey
yet remaining inexorably alone.
Your poem gave me much pause for thought. I can't say it was satisfying. More a depleting of the hopefulness in me. But high marks for the feeling and the thinking it intoned in me.
Yes, mental hives, a lot of activity, very little real action.
Thanks for your entry. ps: I think the reason your poem left me feeling flat, was not the writing itself, which really was quite splendid, but moreso, I think, the fault would lie with this reader's(my) frame of mind brought to it. I seek more hopefulness...more zing and zest!
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thanks, I've written about this theme so many times that this piece perhaps did not get the attention it needs (so I will remedy that somewhat, and pick the newer title!) I've presented the problem, but there is no solution yet... the bright note there is that once a problem is identified then a solution can be found; and perhaps we try to squeeze too much out of the written word- at least the heart; and funny how the heart and mind interact, are even dependent on each other...
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the phone detail crystallized the first stanza
I like the crazy on the second stanza
not understanding does not suggest a conflict
stanza 3 "simple" detracts from the importance and sensory of touch
stanza 4
tears are physical and this counter the idea of lack of touch
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